what is conceptual art ?

WHAT IS– –
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R o y a l H o s p i t a l , M i l i t a r y R d ,
K i l m a i n h a m , D u b l i n 8
I r e l a n d
T . 0 0 3 5 3 1 6 1 2 9 9 0 0
F . 0 0 3 5 3 1 6 1 2 9 9 9 9
E . i n f o @ i m m a . i e
w w w . i m m a . i e
Education and Community Programmes,
Image: Brian O’Doherty,
CONTENTS
Introduction: Conceptual Art page 04
What is Conceptual Art? - MIck Wilson page 08
Further Reading page 20
Glossary of terms page 21
Conceptual Art Resources page 24
This series represents a response to a number of challenges. Firstly, the inherent problems and contradictions that arise when attempting to outline or summarise the wide-ranging, constantly changing and contested spheres of both art theory and practice, and secondly, the use of summary terms to describe a range of practices, many of which emerged in opposition to such totalising tendencies. Taking these challenges into account, this talks series offers a range of perspectives, drawing on expertise and experience from lecturers, artists, curators and critical writers and is neither definitive nor exhaustive. The inten- tion is to provide background and contextual information about the art and artists featured in IMMA’s exhibitions and collection in particular, and about Contemporary Art in general, to promote information sharing, and to encourage critical thinking, debate and discussion about art and artists. The talks series addresses aspects of Modern and Contemporary Art spanning the period from the 1940s to the present. Each talk will be supported by an information leaflet which includes a summary, the presenter’s essay, a reading list, a glossary of terms and a resources list. This information can also be found on IMMA’s website along with more detailed information about artworks and artists featured in IMMA’s Collection at www.imma.ie.
There is a growing interest in Contemporary Art, yet the ideas and theo-
retical frameworks which inform its practice can be complex and difficult
to access. By focusing on a number of key headings, such as Conceptual Art,
Installation Art and Performance Art, this series of talks is intended to
provide a broad overview of some of the central themes and directions in
Modern and Contemporary Art.
THE WHAT IS– –
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The Irish Museum of Modern Art is the national cultural institution for the col- lection and presentation of Modern and Contemporary Art. IMMA exhibits and collects Modern and Contemporary Art by established and emerging Irish and international artists. The Temporary Exhibitions Programme features work by established and emerging artists, and includes work ranging from painting, sculpture, installation, photography, video and performance. IMMA originates many of its exhibitions but also works closely with a network of international museums and galleries. IMMA’s Collection includes artworks spanning a range of media and genres, acquired through purchase, donations, loans and commis- sions, many in association with IMMA’s Temporary Exhibitions Programme and, on occasion, IMMA’s Artists’ Residency Programme. This introductory text provides a brief overview of Conceptual Art. Associated terms are indicated in CAPITAls and are elaborated on in a glossary on page 21. We invited Mick Wilson, Dean of the Graduate school of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM) to contribute an essay entitled What is Conceptual Art?, which considers the relevance of Conceptual Art both as an influential art movement during a particular period of time but also, more broadly, as a frame- work for creating and understanding art which remains relevant to Contempo- rary Art practice. IMMA’s Collection includes works by a number of artists associated with Conceptual Art, such as Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Kosuth, sol leWitt, lawrence Weiner, Dennis Oppenheim, Art and language, Matt Mullican, Brian O’Doherty/ Patrick Ireland, Michael Craig-Martin, James Coleman and Gilbert and George. The legacy of Conceptual Art is evident in the work of a new generation of artists whose work is also featured in IMMA’s Collection, including Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn, Douglas Gordon, Rebecca Horn, liam Gillick, Philippe Parreno and Garret Phelan. We hope to draw attention to the potential of IMMA’s exhibitions and Collection as resources in the study and consideration of Conceptual Art, and that these texts will encourage critical engagement with the debates that continue to inform Contemporary Art.
04
Introduction
WHAT IS– –
– – – – – – – – – – – ––– – – – – – – – – – – – ? Conceptual Art
COnCEPTuAl ART refers to a diverse range of artistic practice from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, where emphasis was placed on the concept or idea rather than the physical art object. It also refers more generally to a frame- work for creating and understanding COnTEMPORARY ART, which prioritises a consideration of the idea or concept, and the intergration of context when encountering the work. The origin and meaning of the term is disputed, as Con- ceptual Art defies traditional forms of definition and categorisation, and cannot be identified by a uniform style or medium. Conceptual Art emerged during a period of social, political and cultural upheaval in the 1960s. It was a reaction to the perceived constraints of MODERnIsM and the increasing commodification of the art object. Artists sought the means to think beyond the medium-specific aspects of traditional art forms, such as originality, style, expression, craft, permanence, decoration and display, attributed to PAInTInG and sCulPTuRE. They used lAnGuAGE and TEXT to directly disseminate ideas, demystify artistic production and negate visuality. Artworks took the form of written statements, declarations, definitions and invitations. As a consequence, this period has been described in terms of the ‘dematerialisation’ of the art object; a notion contested by some artists who argue that all ideas are accompanied by some form of artistic material, whether it is a photograph, sketch, instruction or map. Internationally, Conceptual Art is recognised for its use of both text and ephemeral or everyday materials, such as FOunD OBJECTs, READYMADEs, PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEO, PERFORMAnCE, DOCuMEnTATIOn and FIlM.
Image: Lawrence Weiner,
05 What is
07
Historically, French artist MARCEl DuCHAMP pioneered a conceptual approach to art with his readymades, pre-empting many questions pursued by Concep- tual artists regarding what is art and who determines it. Conceptual tendencies can also be found in the ‘anti-art gestures’ of DADAIsM, COnsTRuCTIVIsM, POP ART, MInIMAlIsM and FluXus. But it was Conceptual artists who interro- gated the normative cultural status and perception of the visual art object with most rigour, believing art could act as a cultural intervention, and that it cannot be considered in isolation from its social, political and economic environment. This newly acquired scepticism questioned traditional forms of marketing the art object as a decorative, visual COMMODITY, challenging the ownership, distribution and authorship of the art object. The shift in emphasis from art’s material value was a deliberate attempt to subvert the autonomy and power of the art market, and the GAllERY or MusEuM as the location, arbiter and sole representative of art. Central to disrupting the conventional logic of art systems was the role placed on the audience, who were viewed as active participants in the dissemination and expansion of ideas and the democratisation of art. Beholding the idea was to behold the artwork; undermining the private owner- ship of art as object and the conventional conditions of spectatorship. Artists employed strategies from the mass MEDIA, such as magazines, billboards and television broadcasts, to bypass the museum and gallery and to distribute art within the public domain. To expand on the critique of art, ideas were sourced from philosophy, lInGuIsTICs, sEMIOTICs and CRITICAl THEORY. Conceptual Art is hugely influential, considered by some to be the turning point from Modern to Contemporary Art practice. Its influence can be seen in performance art, lAnD ART, InsTAllATIOn ART, PARTICIPATORY ART, sITE sPECIFIC ART, nEW MEDIA ART, RElATIOnAl ART and PuBlIC ART. It replaced an object-based practice with a reflexive preoccupation with the objectification of art. Artists took on the positions of CRITIC and CuRATOR, and set out the parameters of a debate that art practitioners continue to address. For some, Conceptual Art is considered an overly intellectual and anti-aesthetic art form. Within the discourse of InsTITuTIOnAl CRITIQuE, Conceptual Art is considered a paradoxical exercise, in that the very institu- tions which were the focus of its critique have now appropriated and instru- mentalised its strategies and methodologies, whilst simultaneously neutralising its broader social and political impact. Conceptual Art continues to inform Contemporary Art theory and practice, and has contributed to a revised under- standing of art, radicalising modes of presenting, exhibiting and collecting art. sophie Byrne, Assistant Curator Talks and lectures Programme lisa Moran, Curator Education and Community Programmes
Conceptual art is not about forms or materials, but about ideas and meanings. It cannot be defined in terms of any medium or style, but rather by the way it questions what art is. In particular, Conceptual art challenges the traditional status of the art object as unique, collectable and/or saleable. […] This art can take a variety of forms: everyday objects, photographs, maps, videos, charts and especially language itself. Often there will be a combination of such forms. […] Conceptual art has had a determining effect on the thinking of most artists.1 Tony Godfrey, 1998 I will refer to the kind of art which I am involved in as conceptual art. In concep- tual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. […] The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. […] Conceptual art is not necessar- ily logical. […] The ideas need not be complex. Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple.2 sol leWitt, 1967 Conceptual art, for me, means work in which the idea is paramount and the material form is secondary, lightweight, ephemeral, cheap, unpretentious and/ or “dematerialized.” […] This has not kept commentators over the years from calling virtually anything in unconventional mediums “Conceptual art.” […] There has been a lot of bickering about what Conceptual art is/was; who began it; who did what when with it; what its goals, philosophy, and politics were and might have been. I was there, but I don’t trust my memory. I don’t trust anyone else’s either. And I trust even less the authoritative overviews by those who were not there.3 lucy lippard, 1972 Concept art is first of all an art of which the material is concepts, as the mate- rial of e.g. music is sound. since concepts are closely bound up with language, concept art is a kind of art of which the material is language.4
Henry Flynt, 1961
09
Introduction
I chose to work with inert gas because there was not the constant presence of a small object or device that produced the art. Inert gas is a material that is imperceivable - it does not combine with any other element […] That is what gas does. When released, it returns to the atmosphere from where it came. It continues to expand forever in the atmosphere, constantly changing and it does all of this without anybody being able to see it.5 Robert Barry, 1969
The quotations which begin this essay establish most of the key themes in discussing conceptual art: the priority given to ideas; the ambiguous role of actual objects and materials; the need to rethink the mechanisms of ‘display’ and distribution of art; the increasingly important role for language; and the tendency to trouble core definitions both of ‘art’ in general and of ‘conceptual art’ itself in particular. This repeated play with definitions – ‘What is the limit of what can be included under the heading “art”?’ ‘What is the most reduced and concise way in which a conceptual artwork can be “given” for the audience to “experience”?’ – makes answering the question ‘What is conceptual art?’ a little tricky, but also very worthwhile. Perhaps the easiest way to introduce conceptual art is to consider some examples of work typically described as ‘conceptual’. Robert Rauschenberg sends a telegram to the Galerie Iris Clert which says: ‘This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so’ as his contribution to an exhibition of portraits in the gallery, (1961).6 stanley Brouwn asks passers-by in Amsterdam to show him the way to a particular spot in the city using pen and paper, (This way Brouwn, 1961).7 John Baldessari instructs a sign painter to paint the following words on a canvas: ‘study the composition of paintings. Ask yourself questions when standing in front of a well-composed picture. What format is used? What is the proportion of width to height?’, (Composing on a Canvas, 1966-8).8 Cildo Meireles screen-prints subversive messages onto Coca-Cola glass bottles and re-circulates these so that they are re-used for selling Coca-Cola (Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project, 1970).9 Joseph Kosuth exhibits a series of black- and-white photostats of dictionary definitions for words such as ‘meaning’ and ‘universal’, (Art as ideas as idea, 1966). Adrian Piper exhibits a short text saying: ‘The work originally intended for this space has been withdrawn. […] I submit its absence as evidence of the inability of art expression to have a meaningful existence under conditions other than those of peace, equality, truth, trust and freedom,’ (1970).10
Most commentators identify the period from 1966 to 1972 as the key phase of development: a period that concludes with the canonisation of conceptualism in the controversial international survey exhibition Documenta V in Germany organised by Harald szeeman,11 and the first publication of lucy lippard’s often cited book that maps conceptual art, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, in the us.12 However, this neat packaging of cultural practices in such crisply delimited movements and periods, with clear begin- nings and endings, is always, to a greater or lesser degree, misleading, although such periodisations are sometimes useful in summarily introducing complex cultural historical material. The key problem presented by mapping conceptual art is the degree to which it has come to reorient the entire field of modern art, so that producing an account of conceptual art opens up a whole range of unresolved issues that continue to vex participants in contemporary art debate.
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This term ‘conceptual art’ has become the most widely used name for works such as these, which form a broad spectrum of experimental artworks and practices that developed from the 1960s onwards. These new art practices no longer necessarily depend on the production of discrete one-off physical objects; nor necessarily use traditional media and techniques like picture- making with paint or modelling with clay or casting with bronze or assembling with metal and wood; nor even demonstrate a specifically pronounced ‘visual’ or ‘hand made’ aspect. Typically, though not without important exceptions, art making prior to this development had been a matter of working directly within relatively familiar art forms and media – painting, sculpture, drawing, and print- making – to produce discrete objects. Conceptual art can make use of these forms on occasion, but it no longer requires these forms in order to produce something that claims an audience’s attention as an artwork – the emphasis is generally not placed on a specific material artefact nor on hand-crafting or technical-making processes as such, nor even on the ‘expressive’ personality of the artist, but rather on a range of concerns that emphasise the role of ‘ideas’. However, such generalisations are really only rough approximations – in many ways the list of works provided above could be used as counter- examples: for example, Robert Barry’s work with inert gases is centrally based on a material process, the diffusion of the gases into the atmosphere; however, this process is not available to perception in the usual terms of art viewing. This play off between percept (what is given in the experience) and concept (what is proposed as organising the experience meaningfully) is a recurrent feature of much conceptual art which makes use of the ambiguous interplay of language, perceptual experience and the conceptual organisation of experience.
When was
Conceptual Art?
the question
so as a first rough attempt at an answer to the question ‘What is conceptual art?’, we could propose something like: conceptual art, is the name for a broad tendency to shift the priorities for making, describing, thinking about, giving value to, and distributing works of art, toward questions of idea rather than technique. This is a tendency that is strongly evident since the 1960s. This is a shift from questions of craft process, material artefact, medium, tradition and virtuosity as primary, to questions of intention, meaning, idea and information as foremost in importance. This broad shift in emphasis is evident internation- ally in the work of artists from many countries including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Russia, the netherlands, new Zealand, the uK, and the united states, from the 1960s onwards. While some have identified conceptual art primarily with new York and north America, and thus with an English-speaking cultural context, others have worked hard to overcome this bias by exploring the rich and culturally diverse examples of conceptualism globally.13
But one of the problems with this answer is that it seems to isolate conceptual art from a broader set of developments in post World-War II culture, such as pop art and minimalism, as well as wider developments in literature, poetry, theatre, performance and mass media. Part of the problem here is the way in which the academic discipline of art history, especially in its popularised form in glossy publications and television programmes, likes to talk of ‘styles’ and ‘movements’ and to anchor these notions by describing the visual appearance of, and techniques used in producing artefacts such as paintings and sculptures. Clearly, when artists begin to prioritise ideas and begin to use ideas from a wide range of sources – science, philosophy, sociology, literary theory, media and communications studies, cybernetics, ecological activism, and counter cultural politics for example – the old art historical conventions of ‘movements’ and ‘styles’ potentially become obstacles to establishing a broad and rich sense of a wide-ranging re-orientation of the global art system. (Of course another prob- lem of academic art history can often be its preoccupation with being ‘correct’ and exact in its use of terms, which can lead to a lot of hair-splitting and angels dancing on the heads of pins, so let’s not lose too much sleep over our rough answer to the question ‘What is conceptual art?’)
Problems with
this answer
One important dimension of conceptual art (which it is difficult to address in an answer like the one given above), is its relationship with counter-cultural tendencies and with various forms of international cultural politics such as feminism, the anti-war movements, and various forms of activism and dissent. A key work of the 1970s and critically important for the development of femi- nist cultural practice and debate is Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document, which is in part a reworking of conceptual art approaches to the exhibition as ‘system’ and a use of the archive as a medium of display (presenting images, diagrams, documents, artefacts in a systematic manner).14 The exhibition as ‘system’, refers to the use of cybernetics and systems thinking in various…